Can an appellate court interfere with a lower court’s findings of fact, absent palpable and overriding error?

Ontario, Canada


The following excerpt is from Lamba v. Mitchell, 2021 ONSC 8011 (CanLII):

An appellate court should not interfere with lower courts’ findings of fact, absent palpable and overriding error. A palpable and overriding error is an error that can be plainly seen and that affected the result. “The same proposition is sometimes stated as prohibiting an appellate court from reviewing a trial judge’s decision, if there was some evidence upon which he or she could have relied to reach that conclusion”: Housen v. Nikolaisen, 2002 SCC 33, at para. 1.

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